Community - Suggestion for better Community Input to the Devs

Minno

kyle.wilson wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

With the outrage over an API that pretty much allows cheating, I am surprised that @ZOS_BrianWheeler, @ZOS_RichLambert, and @ZOS_Wrobel haven't had any comments on the forum for a while

I'm basing this off the dev tracker.

Wrobel's last post was Sept 29
Rich Lambert's was Aug 14
and
Brain Wheeler's was Aug 18

That's not engagement by any stretch of the imagination.

@ZOS_MattFiror last active Feb 27.

Matt's head boss. If he doesn't come to comment, means they are on top of things. Trust me you don't want the boss making comments when he should be delegating.

Wheeler could be working in future BG maps or on the cyro changes being mentioned in Monday. And who knows, maybe he went on PTO during the summer like a normal human. (And if I have to explain what pto is, you won't too that happens to you. )

Lambert is like the vice president of the game. If he wants to blow drugs and deligate tasks; hell I want his job lol. He doesn't have to respond if he had a team like gonna to handle the info.

Gina is doing a great job. We can get frustrated at some things, but in the end it's up to us to make our case via videos and numbers as best as possible. And then remember it's a game we play for fun.

I think the team is fine. Yes maybe they could respond faster or more in-depth especially with how they envision some changes. But overall they are reacting to comments we make.

Solariken

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

I've always wondered if this game would be better off if ZOS' combat/class/skill design team was NOT also a development team.

The combat devs seem to be mostly competent coders, but they are pretty awful game designers. Wouldn't it be better to have two smallish teams that work closely together, one to code / implement new features / fix bugs, and another team to PLAY THE FREAKING GAME / brainstorm about class design / make balance decisions / counterplay / character mechanics?

At the risk of replying to a pretty rude post, our combat developers are not engineers - these are two different teams. What you're suggesting is essentially what we already do. What is it that you're unhappy with, exactly?

@ZOS_GinaBruno forgive me if that came off as overly harsh and rude/ignorant, I don't mean to offend. I suppose that 3 years of the same continual frustrations (especially within topics of game design/development) can make it difficult to reign in my sour attitude.

I'm sure you understand that so many of us are in LOVE with the Elder Scrolls universe and we had incredibly high expectations for an ES MMO. This game could/should have been the long-prophesied "WoW killer" by virtue of it's combat and character-building mechanics alone. Man, do I wish it had been! But IMO there was a complete inattention to core areas of character design. When I played this game in beta I was pretty disgusted with how very little it resembled an Elder Scrolls game. It's come a long way since then, but it didn't really start to blossom until Lambert took over.

My personal grievances are too many to discuss here, but ZOS missed the mark entirely on so many big issues. But you did ask what I'm unhappy with so here's a sampling:

• The Champion System. This thing is a complete turd. I love that they adopted a form of account-wide end game progression, but this system is just a pile of problems and adds nothing of value to the game. It feels like one big after-thought.
  
  
• Cyrodiil performance. I don't need to expound here... But this alone leads me to assume the combat devs don't even play the game enough to care about it. ZOS has driven a handful of my friends out of the game because of this.
  
  
• Imperial City is still not on its own campaign and still takes half an hour to get to. Does ZOS even care about the problems with this otherwise awesome DLC?
  
  
• Class design. The rigid class design of ESO is an abomination - I understand that developers need "classes" to instill a sense of variety and artificial replayability of the game for longevity purposes, but the original devs really fell flat in this category. The classes all feel so hob-job and arbitrary - they didn't even attempt to build anything around them in game - what is a Nightblade? How did I become one? Why can't I stop being one and be something else instead? We should be creating "classless" characters and building them up within the game, not picking some arbitrary mess of skills that we are stuck with for eternity, meanwhile I have to watch you nerf-bat me every update.
  
  
• No ES classic schools of magic!? I'm sorry but hiring any lead dev that doesn't understand why this is a problem is a fatal mistake. The Mages Guild should also be worth more to a character than six ultra-generic skills; the Mages/Fighters/Thieves Guilds should have been married deeply into character progression.
  
  
• Stamina should have been stamina, not green magicka. Why do 99% of stamina abilities look and behave like magic spells?

...And many many many more but I'm tired of typing on my tiny smartphone keypad.

WhiteNoiseMaker

Minno wrote: »

I think the team is fine. Yes maybe they could respond faster or more in-depth especially with how they envision some changes. But overall they are reacting to comments we make.

Without a doubt, the most apologist post to date. I wish I didn't have to account for months of my time (Feb, Aug, really?!) to the taxpayers (consumers) that paid my salary. Your standards are ridiculously lax.

Minno

WhiteNoiseMaker wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

I think the team is fine. Yes maybe they could respond faster or more in-depth especially with how they envision some changes. But overall they are reacting to comments we make.

Without a doubt, the most apologist post to date. I wish I didn't have to account for months of my time (Feb, Aug, really?!) to the taxpayers (consumers) that paid my salary. Your standards are ridiculously lax.

Young gamer privilege. I remember a time when the game you played was the game you got and you had closer to no input on it's output.

But then again, what do I know, I just play here.

Dorrino

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Dorrino

You of all should realize the time it takes to respond to threads, as you yourself reply to the majority of concerns voiced against your addon (as shortsighted as some of those complaints may be).

I reply in details because i find it interesting. On personal grounds.

Dev response can be anything from a simple line of 'Gotcha, working on this' to multiple paragraphs detailed explanation of their reasoning. The sheer number of issues within the community is quite low. A couple dozens. Any developer can find 30 min per week to cover the issues related to his area of the game.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Imagine that you as well had to respond to tenfold as many posts (and this is being frugal) that all pertain to your 9-5 job, but each post a different aspect. Do you respond to each and every thread?

As outlined above, i'd reply in a totally different manner. Community doesn't need my elaborate replies:)

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Now that the community knows that they will get Dev responses, do they create more threads with their "game-changing" ideas, with the expectation that they get to have discourse with the development team? I can assure you, that they will (as I am guilty of that myself), even if the ideas may be considered ludicrous from your point of view. Which creates a never ending cycle of more and more community input.

And this is AWESOME. This is how you engage 'people who actually play the game' to participate in the game's improvements. Games are not (just) about coding, testing and fixing 'cool stuff'. They are about figuring out where to take the game. Figuring out what this 'cool stuff' should even be.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

If the devs cannot handle the amount of input from the community, and they "apparently" begin to slow down responses, does the community complain? Yes, yes they will.

If the community knows they will get a response within a reasonable timeframe (one/two weeks at most) they will understand. Just like children learn at some point that 'daddy can be busy, but he still loves them and will find the time for them'.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Will the average forum user understand when the devs say they don't have the resources to do such a thing as responding to every thread? No! The devs are made of Money! they can hire more people! They can't be working all that hard! Personal attacks, etc...

They will. They won't have other choice. They will get a straight response and even if they won't like it, they won't have the grounds to argue about it. They will mumble and calm down.

People are surprisingly understandable and tolerant when they don't see a way to force their desires.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

So now every time they comment to the public, while there are some people who are grateful, there are others who are just overall toxins, eating away at any desire to communicate with the forums outside of just observing.

If devs themselves get offended by their playerbase, i'd argue they are not suited for developing mmos. There would exist a huge lack of understanding what people want and like and what is the nature of interactions between game devs and game players.

If i was offended by stuff that people generously pour at me (<3 you all!) would i want to do literally anything for them?:)

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Of course, that's just speculation. Could be that there is a NDA on most employees that's now just being enforced to prevent any stakeholders losing money from a loose-jawed dev that may say there is a problem with something. And now all outgoing communications have to be vetted, and its just a waste of time putting out any status update posts. Who knows.

This is a likely and the most sad variant. Because in this case both community and the devs suffer due to a 3rd party limitations.


To add an important bit here: the only reason devs can not have time to reply on the forums is that they are not paid to reply on the forums. This is not a part of their job. And in mmo business if you don't pay your employees to maintain a healthy communication with the community - you're arguable treat mmos as a single player game. I.e. you fail to grasp the unique properties of an mmo.

Vaoh

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I would just like to add that although players will always feel differently about balance changes, game performance truly is the single issue that has historically hurt ESO. Even unpopular balance changes can be brushed aside like nothing compared to game performance issues.

People that choose to leave ESO rarely do it because their build was nerfed. If FPS is dropping by a lot and your skills won’t cast then balance has already been thrown off anyway. All of people I know who played ESO a lot only chose to finally quit after super laggy Cyrodiil fights or consistent crashes/low FPS in trials (especially on console).

Next patch sounds very nice with the performance improvements but I don’t think I can stress it enough - PLEASE improve performance. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE prioritize it more. Unlike balance changes, game performance issues affect everything and no one wants to deal with them.

Zaldan

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

...we look at the big picture to see what needs to be done for the betterment of the game as a whole and how something will affect all aspects (PvE, PvP, dungeons, Trials, etc).

You know what would be good for the game?
If pvp worked during primetime.
You´d have 10 times the pvp playerbase if pvp wasn´t a freaking lagfest when you try to play it between 7 to 11pm on EU PC.

I´ll put it quite simple: Everyone i´ve played with in my guild since release. Literally everyone. Everyone of those people quit your game because it does not work during primetime in pvp.
Not because of anything else. Only because it does not work.
Over the past 3 years you have not been able to get your game to work during primetime.

How you can come here and have the audacity to tell people you´re doing anything for the betterment of the game in pvp is beyond me and i find that statement infuriating and straightup insulting (i know you´re not to blame for the state of affairs in general - i´m only blaming you for making the statement that there is anything done for the betterment of pvp - simply because it´s a lie).

Your game does not even work unless you play it in the morning.
Seriously

I know you're frustrated, but remember the statement I made earlier was in regards to ability changes and not performance. Now that said, we do have several performance improvements coming in Update 16 (Monday for PC) that will help improve the frame rate and loading screens - this includes Cyrodiil.

Heard this so many times before, improvements of 0.000001% do not have any effect, unless you've got some real improvements just come clean and admit you cannot or will not fix the problem.

Elsonso

Minno wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

With the outrage over an API that pretty much allows cheating, I am surprised that ZOS_BrianWheeler, ZOS_RichLambert, and ZOS_Wrobel haven't had any comments on the forum for a while

I'm basing this off the dev tracker.

Wrobel's last post was Sept 29
Rich Lambert's was Aug 14
and
Brain Wheeler's was Aug 18

That's not engagement by any stretch of the imagination.

ZOS_MattFiror last active Feb 27.

Matt's head boss. If he doesn't come to comment, means they are on top of things. Trust me you don't want the boss making comments when he should be delegating.

We don't want Firor in here commenting, if that is not his style. It is clearly not his style. Yes, it would have been cool if it was, and the forum would have an entirely different feel. He could delegate, but I think all of the senior studio management shares this with him, and things roll down the chain until we get to Gina and Jessica. They are holding down the fort at the Alamo.

For as much as people want Wrobel in here commenting, it is clearly not his style, either. He is more into prepared announcements than exchanges. While announcements are nice, it comes off as stirring the pot and then stepping back to see what floats to the top.

Wheeler and Lambert, particularly Lambert, seem more comfortable in the forum, and I think that we could benefit from some exchange with them. However, they are busy people, and once an exchange is started, it takes time to tend it. As much as I would like to hear from them more, I would prefer that they make a cool game. (Of course, if they are not going to make anything I am interested in, they should get their butts into the forum. )

What I think they should have done is leverage someone from Bethesda that could do the community liaison work and pull some of that off of Gina. That person's job would be to answer these questions that come up, or repeat answers as needed, on a frequent basis.

Derra

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

...we look at the big picture to see what needs to be done for the betterment of the game as a whole and how something will affect all aspects (PvE, PvP, dungeons, Trials, etc).

You know what would be good for the game?
If pvp worked during primetime.
You´d have 10 times the pvp playerbase if pvp wasn´t a freaking lagfest when you try to play it between 7 to 11pm on EU PC.

I´ll put it quite simple: Everyone i´ve played with in my guild since release. Literally everyone. Everyone of those people quit your game because it does not work during primetime in pvp.
Not because of anything else. Only because it does not work.
Over the past 3 years you have not been able to get your game to work during primetime.

How you can come here and have the audacity to tell people you´re doing anything for the betterment of the game in pvp is beyond me and i find that statement infuriating and straightup insulting (i know you´re not to blame for the state of affairs in general - i´m only blaming you for making the statement that there is anything done for the betterment of pvp - simply because it´s a lie).

Your game does not even work unless you play it in the morning.
Seriously

I know you're frustrated, but remember the statement I made earlier was in regards to ability changes and not performance. Now that said, we do have several performance improvements coming in Update 16 (Monday for PC) that will help improve the frame rate and loading screens - this includes Cyrodiil.

Appriciate the reply.

I just think that especially the balancing team should maybe try to poke the people responsible for the mess that cyrodiil is in. They do obviously try to create a better game and while i may or may not agree with their vision of the game there is undeniably progress being made.

However for those people (wrobel and the gang) especially it must be really frustrating that their efforts are essentially hollowed out by the games tech/netcode.
They can try to create a better playing experience all they want - ultimately if the players can´t play what good is their effort in terms of balancing classes skilllines and gear?

Thing is it´s not loading screes or fps for the people i played with. It´s simply crippling lag/ skills not firing (char looking like it has a seizure bc skillanimations break off before anything gets executed). Pingmeter showing 150 to 200 but having a 3s delay between buttonpress and skill working.

Joy_Division

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

ZoS does listen to our feedback. That doesn't mean that if ZoS chooses not to implement your feedback, they ignored it.

Taking your frustrations out on Gina over issues she has zero control over is a pretty crappy thing to do.

Sure, CMs have no impact over any decision made by ZOS's dev team. But there were threads (especially your very good threads on templar issues) that were only met with dead silence. Is that fair? You were as constructive as a non-employee of ZOS could be, yet your feedback was completely ignored. I do understand that not implementing everything that is said here does not mean that they dont listwn, but if they dont even answer well made threads that are almost an essay about problems that need fixing and things that are out of balance, what kind of thread you expect to be read? It would be much better if they at least posted something at all like "Points A, B and C we agree and are looking to fix then, we are meeting problems at B and C because of F and G causes. We dont agree with your vision on X and Y because of Z". They always talk about some vision they have for the game.I wonder what vision is it? We dont know, that makes people feel that dont listen to the playerbase at all, and they dont have a vision for the future of the game aside from reskinning mounts for Crown Crates.

I'm sorry but thats just how I (and I think others) feel about it.

EDIT: Also the "Z" symbol on the threads is somewhat frustrating, I personally dont care about a forum moderator announcing that they removed some post or corrected another, that "Z" mark on the thread should be reserved only for CMs and devs, so we could see actual answers there.

I absolutely agree with you in that it's super frustrating to write something you feel is thoughtful and compelling and just have silence. At the least it would be incredibly helpful just to get a /lurk or something.

That being said, I'm not going to go ballistic on Gina because of my frustrations with the game's developers and the higher-ups who make the (questionable) decisions.

Avran_Sylt

@Dorrino

Eh, fair enough. My point of view is to always be as pessimistic as possible. The path that requires the most work is the path that is likely to be the one required. So I can only hope that the devs would enjoy poking the community with responses here and there, and it's just some unknown factor that is preventing this. Time will tell, I guess.

zParallaxz

My question is, will update 16 brings substantial changes to performance. Never in my life of gaming since I was 6 years old and I’m now 19, played a game where it crashes at least once a day. The devs need to focus on performance issues-> balance-> content, in that exact order. What’s pissing people off is new items and dlc coming out when the game is still unplayable for most. I understand they have to make money as a company, but realize the game needs substantial fixes to be playable by most.

Kilandros

Minno wrote: »

WhiteNoiseMaker wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

I think the team is fine. Yes maybe they could respond faster or more in-depth especially with how they envision some changes. But overall they are reacting to comments we make.

Without a doubt, the most apologist post to date. I wish I didn't have to account for months of my time (Feb, Aug, really?!) to the taxpayers (consumers) that paid my salary. Your standards are ridiculously lax.

Young gamer privilege. I remember a time when the game you played was the game you got and you had closer to no input on it's output.

But then again, what do I know, I just play here.

This is such a silly comment. Never mind the "When I was young, I had to walk uphill both to and from school. You youngsters have it easy" cliche.

Go read some of the Developer interviews of some of the early WoW and Asheron's Call Devs circa early 2000s. They talk about how open lines of communication were (they'd have social events with players, talk directly to players in game etc.). Those guys realized later that they had too much player contact. But I still remember when I played Asheron's Call, Developers (not just CMs) were active on the forums talking about controversial issues, I remember talking and even playing with a couple of Developers in game.

The modern gaming industry, on the other hand, treats their players more like addicts than customers and strictly enforces the Developer/Player partition. That being said, ZOS is not nearly as bad as other companies out there. They've had the council of raiders meetings in the past where Rich and Eric host top trials guilds and talk about the game direction and stuff.

ZOS' main communication problem, I think, is that they say things early in the PTS cycle like "We want to buff underused skills" but by the end of the PTS cycle we're into the "We're nerfing popular morphs to make the choice more interesting," without being provided any explanation why nerfs and not further buffs were necessary. In short: ZOS sends too many mixed messages; it's not so much the quantity of their communication with us, but the quality.

DoonerSeraph

Joy_Division wrote: »

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

ZoS does listen to our feedback. That doesn't mean that if ZoS chooses not to implement your feedback, they ignored it.

Taking your frustrations out on Gina over issues she has zero control over is a pretty crappy thing to do.

Sure, CMs have no impact over any decision made by ZOS's dev team. But there were threads (especially your very good threads on templar issues) that were only met with dead silence. Is that fair? You were as constructive as a non-employee of ZOS could be, yet your feedback was completely ignored. I do understand that not implementing everything that is said here does not mean that they dont listwn, but if they dont even answer well made threads that are almost an essay about problems that need fixing and things that are out of balance, what kind of thread you expect to be read? It would be much better if they at least posted something at all like "Points A, B and C we agree and are looking to fix then, we are meeting problems at B and C because of F and G causes. We dont agree with your vision on X and Y because of Z". They always talk about some vision they have for the game.I wonder what vision is it? We dont know, that makes people feel that dont listen to the playerbase at all, and they dont have a vision for the future of the game aside from reskinning mounts for Crown Crates.

I'm sorry but thats just how I (and I think others) feel about it.

EDIT: Also the "Z" symbol on the threads is somewhat frustrating, I personally dont care about a forum moderator announcing that they removed some post or corrected another, that "Z" mark on the thread should be reserved only for CMs and devs, so we could see actual answers there.

I absolutely agree with you in that it's super frustrating to write something you feel is thoughtful and compelling and just have silence. At the least it would be incredibly helpful just to get a /lurk or something.

That being said, I'm not going to go ballistic on Gina because of my frustrations with the game's developers and the higher-ups who make the (questionable) decisions.

As far as I know, rarely people go ballistic on Gina. But people DO go ballistic on ZOS and sometimes people just see that as a personal attack. I am frustrated not at her person, but at ZOS's stance on some issues as a whole. Not addressing pain points, not answering questions that pop in multiple threads, not even explaining their vision for the game, even at risk of we thinking they dont have on at all.

The communication between ZOS and the playerbase is a complete fiasco, and again is not because of the CMs, theyre just doing what they can. One example was the sustain nerfs on Morrowind, who the hell thought that saying "This is a buff for redguards if you have less than 15k and a nerf otherwise" was a good idea? If you have to nerf something, be sincere about it and put "more reasoning, less seasoning", less wordplays to try (and fail miserably) to fool the playerbase and more logic.

Waffennacht

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Urza1234 wrote: »

OP, the developers dont come here man. The community managers watch the forums like hawks, but mostly just to remove child *** and off-color jokes.

Granted if everyone followed your suggestion the devs -might- come here, but getting everyone to do that would be like herding cats... cats on skooma.

The actual paid moderators could do it, start a community thread about this or that popular grievance, people would flock to it. That would probably take considerably more time and effort though than what they're currently paid to do. It would also take a much more proactive rather than laissez faire company policy.

This isn't correct. The developers do come on the forums almost daily, and they do read the feedback threads we create when we're active on the PTS; we've said this many times in the past. Also, Jess and I (as the Community Managers) frequently bring threads to the attention of devs to make sure they've seen it, and many times, they already have. The moderators are responsible for removing posts that break our forum rules.

Solariken wrote: »

I've always wondered if this game would be better off if ZOS' combat/class/skill design team was NOT also a development team.

The combat devs seem to be mostly competent coders, but they are pretty awful game designers. Wouldn't it be better to have two smallish teams that work closely together, one to code / implement new features / fix bugs, and another team to PLAY THE FREAKING GAME / brainstorm about class design / make balance decisions / counterplay / character mechanics?

At the risk of replying to a pretty rude post, our combat developers are not engineers - these are two different teams. What you're suggesting is essentially what we already do. What is it that you're unhappy with, exactly?

Tannus15 wrote: »

The thing is getting the community to agree on anything is almost impossible, other than "nerfs are bad, don't take my toys away"

That's the thing - it's almost impossible to make a change that every player will agree with. Our job is to make changes that are best for the overall game. It may not always be popular with everyone, such as nerfing a specific ability, but we look at the big picture to see what needs to be done for the betterment of the game as a whole and how something will affect all aspects (PvE, PvP, dungeons, Trials, etc).

Yet you nerf Shield Wall, Trees and Resto ult but leave Soul Assault an Incap at their low costs...

You guys remove wrath and add no medium armor buff

And... Exactly which abilities and sets are used after a nerf?

ak_pvp

Take a leaf out of facepunch's book.

rfennell_ESO

kyle.wilson wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

With the outrage over an API that pretty much allows cheating, I am surprised that @ZOS_BrianWheeler, @ZOS_RichLambert, and @ZOS_Wrobel haven't had any comments on the forum for a while

I'm basing this off the dev tracker.

Wrobel's last post was Sept 29
Rich Lambert's was Aug 14
and
Brain Wheeler's was Aug 18

That's not engagement by any stretch of the imagination.

@ZOS_MattFiror last active Feb 27.

Yeah and they were probably met with the typical "fire @Wrobel&quot; responses.

I might not have noticed (totally possible), but when I played wow even Ghostcrawler didn't get the type of hate and calls for FIRE HIM bs that Wrobel and Wheeler have gotten here. If I was them I certainly wouldn't engage either...

I'm pretty sure these guys have seen the crap that Ghostcrawler from wow went through... blame and insinuation of culpability over things totally unrelated to their actual function. All the "know it all" streamers (who actually know very little) that have ranted and raved, particularly about Wrobel and Wheeler have likely made it so these forums are to be avoided.

Seen a few "DAOC" referral types lately, Obviously the prism of time passed yields an image of forgetfulness. DAOC, like any other pvp game in existence had some issues with OP abilities that lingered a long time (Hello AOE stuns and massive crippling lag at relic keep fights).

Dorrino

Kilandros wrote: »

The modern gaming industry, on the other hand, treats their players more like addicts than customers

This! Thank you for this. I've been struggling to find the best analogy for this type of communication. It is obviously very much similar to parent vs stupid child type of communication, but parents usually love their children.

Yep, addicts fit perfectly. You don't share their addiction, you even judge it (in your head), you don't find communication with them interesting, but well they pay you your salary. So you talk to them only if there's no other way and even then you try to keep it to bare minimum.

Fuxo

I believe that a more conrete "road ahead" every 3 months for example from the devs would help tremendously. I mean a more concrete explanation what is being implemented and which direction is the game going to take.

At the moment, I have no clue if PvP performance (mentioned in the road ahead) is even being addressed or something else is prioritized. The Clockword city DLC and the new trial is coming, but who is the target group here? Only a handful of players do trials and all they see are nerfs and fun taken away.

Nobody needs super hard modes in the game for elitists. Most of us would prefer to have a couple of zones with a higher difficulty since the overland zones difficulty is a joke.

And regarding the class homogenization. If the devs feel the game should take this direction, why don't they just remove the class system completely and allow us to choose any skill? Just reshuffle all the skills and passives into dps/healing/tanking skill lines and be done with it.

Elsonso

Fuxo wrote: »

I believe that a more conrete "road ahead" every 3 months for example from the devs would help tremendously. I mean a more concrete explanation what is being implemented and which direction is the game going to take.

The reason why we know that direct communication is not Firor's style is because of the "Road Ahead" articles. They even stopped calling them that.

It takes no more than an hour to collect and write this sort of thing. ESO is not so big of a project that Firor would not be able to pull together what is going on with ESO at the "executive summary" level. We don't get them because it is not his style to do that sort of thing. I sort of wish it was.

Besides, he is probably busy with "Project X". My name, not theirs. Whatever X is.

kyle.wilson

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

With the outrage over an API that pretty much allows cheating, I am surprised that @ZOS_BrianWheeler, @ZOS_RichLambert, and @ZOS_Wrobel haven't had any comments on the forum for a while

I'm basing this off the dev tracker.

Wrobel's last post was Sept 29
Rich Lambert's was Aug 14
and
Brain Wheeler's was Aug 18

That's not engagement by any stretch of the imagination.

@ZOS_MattFiror last active Feb 27.

Yeah and they were probably met with the typical "fire @Wrobel&quot; responses.

I might not have noticed (totally possible), but when I played wow even Ghostcrawler didn't get the type of hate and calls for FIRE HIM bs that Wrobel and Wheeler have gotten here. If I was them I certainly wouldn't engage either...

I'm pretty sure these guys have seen the crap that Ghostcrawler from wow went through... blame and insinuation of culpability over things totally unrelated to their actual function. All the "know it all" streamers (who actually know very little) that have ranted and raved, particularly about Wrobel and Wheeler have likely made it so these forums are to be avoided.

Seen a few "DAOC" referral types lately, Obviously the prism of time passed yields an image of forgetfulness. DAOC, like any other pvp game in existence had some issues with OP abilities that lingered a long time (Hello AOE stuns and massive crippling lag at relic keep fights).

I'm not part of the fire anyone crowd, now. I just want a presence to be seen from the core team at ZOS.
Maybe some kind of update on the direction the game will be heading quarterly. Twitch shouldn't be the first place ZOS goes for announcements.

The reason I tagged Matt Firor differently is that I understand it may not be wise for him to continuously post, but no account action in 8 months shows deliberate avoidance of the forum. That gives the appearance of not caring about his game or customers.

And, appearance is everything in business,
https://youtu.be/L10W8tgpPwc

ak_pvp

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Wrobel

What is the process behind the combat changes.

Is there a whole write up they have to do per change in relation to certain aspects of other abilities/skills/metas, such as X is over or underperforming in aspect 1/2 compared to Y/Z/A/B so we adjusted aspect 1 to bring it in line. Meaning skill changes are more likely to be smaller or based on certain specific aspects in comparison

Or is it is it more personal balance thoughts i.e. we feel like X is strong/weak so we can change it in any various way. So any particular aspect can be changed or abilities completely revamped.

Basically is it certain number of aspects that have to be balanced between equivalent abilities, or is it an on the fly thing.
Because there hasn't been many sweeping ability changes like in TG, imo the best balanced patch.

scipionumatia

The whole reason this post got as many responses as it did is because @ZOS_GinaBruno replied directly to individuals posts/complaints.
That in of itself is a rare instance, and I mean that with no disrespect, it's just uncommon.
I agree with some others on this thread and would appreciate increased communication between devs and players. Many people come to the forums to post about issues they have with this or that and in most cases they have a solution along with their complaint. If devs could reply to some of these I'm sure the players would appreciate it. I'm not saying the devs should cave to individuals requests by any means but for example if the devs were looking at how "X" skill is over performing and someone post about how said skill is over performing the devs should use that thread as a way to bounce ideas off the player base by saying "yeah we're looking at this" then If it was me, I'd have a bunch of "user accounts" that devs could log into so they could post as average joes so the forum hawks wouldn't get too hungry going after the green post

More eyes looking at the same problem likely will lead to more creative and "interesting choices" @ZOS_Wrobel I kid, I kid

Anti_Virus

@ZOS_GinaBruno

First I would like to thank you for your input communication from the devs is super important to me personally.

Now I want to say something that frustrates me with the devs:

What is your vision for the DragonKnight class?
A while back although I don't remember the thread I vividly recall your response to someone who requested that DKs get a class execute you said that the class shouldn't get one because its already a strong tank or something to that wording.

The magicka variant is in a weird spot abilities costing magicka synergies best with a staff but the melee range of these high damage abilities forces you in melee range which is not what you want to be in with a staff. So you run with One hand and Shield and that has no synergy with the magicka DK, the passives and ability benefit the stam version 10x more than the magic version not to mention sustaining with this weapon is bad on mDK since it restores stamina not magicka.

Conversely stam DK is in a stranger spot because of the lack of class abilities two poison dots and a poison ultimate, No class spammables forces the stam DK into weapon skill lines and at that only two for damage purposes Dual Wield and Two Hander or just a tank, the lack of a class based heal effective for stam dk etc.

So again what is your vision for the DK? Do you want the class to be a tank? If so why nerf block builds? You guys stated that you want all class skill lines to follow the warden class example if so how are you going to approach it? Will Dks get more damage abilites or improvements to more existing ones?The Warden class abilites put the DK ones to shame, like Shimmering shield vs Scales in which shimmering shield not only has a significantly lower cost than scales but returns magicka AND generates ultimate, warden Ice ultimate vs DK Standard etc.

Elsonso

Anti_Virus wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

First I would like to thank you for your input communication from the devs is super important to me personally.

Now I want to say something that frustrates me with the devs:

What is your vision for the DragonKnight class?
A while back although I don't remember the thread I vividly recall your response to someone who requested that DKs get a class execute you said that the class shouldn't get one because its already a strong tank or something to that wording.

The magicka variant is in a weird spot abilities costing magicka synergies best with a staff but the melee range of these high damage abilities forces you in melee range which is not what you want to be in with a staff. So you run with One hand and Shield and that has no synergy with the magicka DK, the passives and ability benefit the stam version 10x more than the magic version not to mention sustaining with this weapon is bad on mDK since it restores stamina not magicka.

Conversely stam DK is in a stranger spot because of the lack of class abilities two poison dots and a poison ultimate, No class spammables forces the stam DK into weapon skill lines and at that only two for damage purposes Dual Wield and Two Hander or just a tank, the lack of a class based heal effective for stam dk etc.

So again what is your vision for the DK? Do you want the class to be a tank? If so why nerf block builds? You guys stated that you want all class skill lines to follow the warden class example if so how are you going to approach it? Will Dks get more damage abilites or improvements to more existing ones?The Warden class abilites put the DK ones to shame, like Shimmering shield vs Scales in which shimmering shield not only has a significantly lower cost than scales but returns magicka AND generates ultimate, warden Ice ultimate vs DK Standard etc.

I, too, wish they would just publish the class design goals and parameters so that we could understand what they are doing.

With classes and races, information like this tends to get different camps butting heads. Since it is not really possible for all classes, and all races, to be optimal in all roles, this information is not going to greeted with open arms by everyone. If there is an assigned, or preferred, role, certain people will insist that is the only combination that should be used with that role. There will be people doing a role in a class and race combination that is not intended to be a primary role, and they will not be happy, even if they are doing just fine in the role.

In the end, if they published this, it would just become a list of constraints for players to follow.

I don't expect they will ever do it.

Anti_Virus

lordrichter wrote: »

Anti_Virus wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

First I would like to thank you for your input communication from the devs is super important to me personally.

Now I want to say something that frustrates me with the devs:

What is your vision for the DragonKnight class?
A while back although I don't remember the thread I vividly recall your response to someone who requested that DKs get a class execute you said that the class shouldn't get one because its already a strong tank or something to that wording.

The magicka variant is in a weird spot abilities costing magicka synergies best with a staff but the melee range of these high damage abilities forces you in melee range which is not what you want to be in with a staff. So you run with One hand and Shield and that has no synergy with the magicka DK, the passives and ability benefit the stam version 10x more than the magic version not to mention sustaining with this weapon is bad on mDK since it restores stamina not magicka.

Conversely stam DK is in a stranger spot because of the lack of class abilities two poison dots and a poison ultimate, No class spammables forces the stam DK into weapon skill lines and at that only two for damage purposes Dual Wield and Two Hander or just a tank, the lack of a class based heal effective for stam dk etc.

So again what is your vision for the DK? Do you want the class to be a tank? If so why nerf block builds? You guys stated that you want all class skill lines to follow the warden class example if so how are you going to approach it? Will Dks get more damage abilites or improvements to more existing ones?The Warden class abilites put the DK ones to shame, like Shimmering shield vs Scales in which shimmering shield not only has a significantly lower cost than scales but returns magicka AND generates ultimate, warden Ice ultimate vs DK Standard etc.

I, too, wish they would just publish the class design goals and parameters so that we could understand what they are doing.

With classes and races, information like this tends to get different camps butting heads. Since it is not really possible for all classes, and all races, to be optimal in all roles, this information is not going to greeted with open arms by everyone. If there is an assigned, or preferred, role, certain people will insist that is the only combination that should be used with that role. There will be people doing a role in a class and race combination that is not intended to be a primary role, and they will not be happy, even if they are doing just fine in the role.

In the end, if they published this, it would just become a list of constraints for players to follow.

I don't expect they will ever do it.

Agreed.

Aedaryl

Anti_Virus wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

First I would like to thank you for your input communication from the devs is super important to me personally.

Now I want to say something that frustrates me with the devs:

What is your vision for the DragonKnight class?
A while back although I don't remember the thread I vividly recall your response to someone who requested that DKs get a class execute you said that the class shouldn't get one because its already a strong tank or something to that wording.

The magicka variant is in a weird spot abilities costing magicka synergies best with a staff but the melee range of these high damage abilities forces you in melee range which is not what you want to be in with a staff. So you run with One hand and Shield and that has no synergy with the magicka DK, the passives and ability benefit the stam version 10x more than the magic version not to mention sustaining with this weapon is bad on mDK since it restores stamina not magicka.

Conversely stam DK is in a stranger spot because of the lack of class abilities two poison dots and a poison ultimate, No class spammables forces the stam DK into weapon skill lines and at that only two for damage purposes Dual Wield and Two Hander or just a tank, the lack of a class based heal effective for stam dk etc.

So again what is your vision for the DK? Do you want the class to be a tank? If so why nerf block builds? You guys stated that you want all class skill lines to follow the warden class example if so how are you going to approach it? Will Dks get more damage abilites or improvements to more existing ones?The Warden class abilites put the DK ones to shame, like Shimmering shield vs Scales in which shimmering shield not only has a significantly lower cost than scales but returns magicka AND generates ultimate, warden Ice ultimate vs DK Standard etc.

You don't how dk work at all.

First, saying melee range is not what you want with a staff is false. You can play melee with staff and nothing forbidden you to use it, there is also half of the skills that are melee skills : wall of element, pulsar and eyes of the storm.

If magicka dk don't use dampen magicka and healing ward as defense, like sorc or nb, it's because S&B synergise very well with magicka DK. Battle roar with helping hands give you stamina back, and Iron skin give you more block mitigation. Also, having too pieces as weapon make you able to have 5/5/2 set up. The synergy is here, and morrowing buffed the magicka DK ability to perma block.

For stam DK, it's not the only stamina class without a spammable and a heal (hello stam sorc). Also, you forget S&B as a good damage weapon skill line, have you already try the light attack/heroic slash/bash combo with some reverbating bash for stun and debuff heal ? It's powerfull and synergise well with stam dk. In fact, like every other stamina build, stam DK need to have 2h for rally, then he have the choice to use the defensive weapon, or one of the 2 offensive left.

If you think a S&B dk + 2h is necessery a tank build, then you should try it as a tanky DPS set up.

If you want to know what's ZoS vision, just look at the class and realise DK is a melee class build for tankiness and melee damage.

Anti_Virus

Aedaryl wrote: »

Anti_Virus wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

First I would like to thank you for your input communication from the devs is super important to me personally.

Now I want to say something that frustrates me with the devs:

What is your vision for the DragonKnight class?
A while back although I don't remember the thread I vividly recall your response to someone who requested that DKs get a class execute you said that the class shouldn't get one because its already a strong tank or something to that wording.

The magicka variant is in a weird spot abilities costing magicka synergies best with a staff but the melee range of these high damage abilities forces you in melee range which is not what you want to be in with a staff. So you run with One hand and Shield and that has no synergy with the magicka DK, the passives and ability benefit the stam version 10x more than the magic version not to mention sustaining with this weapon is bad on mDK since it restores stamina not magicka.

Conversely stam DK is in a stranger spot because of the lack of class abilities two poison dots and a poison ultimate, No class spammables forces the stam DK into weapon skill lines and at that only two for damage purposes Dual Wield and Two Hander or just a tank, the lack of a class based heal effective for stam dk etc.

So again what is your vision for the DK? Do you want the class to be a tank? If so why nerf block builds? You guys stated that you want all class skill lines to follow the warden class example if so how are you going to approach it? Will Dks get more damage abilites or improvements to more existing ones?The Warden class abilites put the DK ones to shame, like Shimmering shield vs Scales in which shimmering shield not only has a significantly lower cost than scales but returns magicka AND generates ultimate, warden Ice ultimate vs DK Standard etc.

You don't how dk work at all.

First, saying melee range is not what you want with a staff is false. You can play melee with staff and nothing forbidden you to use it, there is also half of the skills that are melee skills : wall of element, pulsar and eyes of the storm.

If magicka dk don't use dampen magicka and healing ward as defense, like sorc or nb, it's because S&B synergise very well with magicka DK. Battle roar with helping hands give you stamina back, and Iron skin give you more block mitigation. Also, having too pieces as weapon make you able to have 5/5/2 set up. The synergy is here, and morrowing buffed the magicka DK ability to perma block.

For stam DK, it's not the only stamina class without a spammable and a heal (hello stam sorc). Also, you forget S&B as a good damage weapon skill line, have you already try the light attack/heroic slash/bash combo with some reverbating bash for stun and debuff heal ? It's powerfull and synergise well with stam dk. In fact, like every other stamina build, stam DK need to have 2h for rally, then he have the choice to use the defensive weapon, or one of the 2 offensive left.

If you think a S&B dk + 2h is necessery a tank build, then you should try it as a tanky DPS set up.

If you want to know what's ZoS vision, just look at the class and realise DK is a melee class build for tankiness and melee damage.

Before you comment take the time and read my post, it's a no brainer that the class is a melee tank but over the years the tank part and dmg has been stripped.

A melee class that has magicka cost abilites with the sustain nerfs heavy attacking and cost reduction is important and all the melee weapons are stam based which forces you into a staff for magicka sustain and in Light armor which is not beneficial in melee range since dampen magicka won't shield you from all dmg from a PvE perspective and in PVP light armor with get you killed pretty quick. Considering the high cost of mDK skills and low sustain of battle roar, it's not practical to wear light armor for survivalbility and only for damage yet the class is supposed to be a tank and that's why it has no execute ability.

SnB isn't a DPS skill line if that was the case it would be used in PVE dps builds it's a tank skill line set up SnB also works on a Stam Sorc, Stam NB, Stam Warden, and Stam templar but with the other classes with the exception of stam Sorc has class abilites/options that synergise with the class and give it uniqueness. NB/temp/warden/Sorc has a class AoE stam DK does not, Templar/Warden/NB has a class spammables DK and Sorc does not. Sure I can run SnB + 2h on DK but it works better on other class set ups like templar in which I have a class spammables and class AoE so I'm not forced to use other weapons to supplement class skills.

So what's your point? That Stam weapons work great on Stam DK? Well guess what they work better on other stam classes too! Also Stam Warden doesn't need a 2h for heals they have an entire skill tree dedicated to healing same with stam sorc( Hello Crit surge) and thus are alleviated from the need to use certain weapon skill lines.

Malic

But its rarely meaningful input. Look im no zos fan boy, im a PVP player they havent done a whole lot for me, lol.

That said most of the stuff posted on the forums is meaningless drivel. "fix the lag" as if for the last 2
years they werent painful aware of it and likely would have if they could. "I want better balance" yes because thats never their goal and they never strive for it.

Look what you see is what you get here. They all seem like really nice people and overall ESO is a great game there is a lot of great things in it. The short comings have been vetted pretty thoroughly on the PTS forums and communicated clearly Remember when they had all the streamers go in and test morrowind?

You remember the result? one is left still streaming the game alcast. Feng does some but much less. That should have been a clear message to all of you.

Now you want to whine about cosmetics, the shade of orange or the price of an elk mount? Thats where we are at. Not much else is going to change, lol.

Nice people, capacity reached.

Avran_Sylt

@Anti_Virus @Aedaryl

While it's nice to see good discussion between forum users, I would ask that in this thread you keep it on topic in regards to how the community should manage their expectations/discussions as a whole to the devs. Keeping it general in terms of asking about the vision for classes in the future is a good point.

However, if you wish to talk about DK's in specifics, please continue that conversation on this thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/376673/can-we-have-any-answer-to-the-state-vision-of-dks